another gym note

I went and lifted weights yesterday, the second time this week. This is good. Going tomorrow as well would be even better. It's possible we could manage a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday-or-Friday schedule (Tuesdays are the fixed day, for Andy at least).

It was easier this time, though there were some things were I reduced the weight for the third set. Still, 2 sets of 15 at 40 pounds for the bench press is good, as good as I've gotten with that. Hip ab- and ad-duction, 20+ minutes of cardio, some leg curls and extensions, even the weird triceps exercises I got from one of their trainers when they were having yet another weird promotion, spin a wheel and get ten minutes of free trainer time on the body part in question. Triceps would not have been my first choice, or even my fourth: but now I'm pulling down 50 or 60 pounds, again for 3 sets, to exercise my forearms.

Just what I need, strong forearms.

another gym note

I went and lifted weights yesterday, the second time this week. This is good. Going tomorrow as well would be even better. It's possible we could manage a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday-or-Friday schedule (Tuesdays are the fixed day, for Andy at least).

It was easier this time, though there were some things were I reduced the weight for the third set. Still, 2 sets of 15 at 40 pounds for the bench press is good, as good as I've gotten with that. Hip ab- and ad-duction, 20+ minutes of cardio, some leg curls and extensions, even the weird triceps exercises I got from one of their trainers when they were having yet another weird promotion, spin a wheel and get ten minutes of free trainer time on the body part in question. Triceps would not have been my first choice, or even my fourth: but now I'm pulling down 50 or 60 pounds, again for 3 sets, to exercise my forearms.

Just what I need, strong forearms.

NY Review of SF work weekend

Kevin picked me up, and we went up to Pleasantville and did NYRSF things. In my case, that meant I read manuscripts, marking everything from commas to unclear antecedents to dubious logic and awkward jumps.

There was one author--this is a manuscript not yet accepted or laid out--who used "Orient" explicitly to mean "the Middle East, China, and Japan" [but not, apparently, any of the area between]. Two sentences later, she had me muttering furiously and scribbling suggested rewrites in the margin, for where she'd described Asia as exotic and "outside of common human experience" (between a third and a half of us humans live in Asia); I suggested "American" instead of "human" there. And I remembered what it is about the word "Oriental" that bothers me, which I hadn't quite articulated in a recent rassef discussion: that weird exoticism, of a place that may be interesting or even important, but is seen as inherently distant. I haven't read the books being discussed, but the critic clearly considers both Jerusalem absolutely central and thoroughly exotic, and hasn't considered that there are many people to whom it is neither of those things, or one but not the other.

This author was also somewhat repetitive, and careless with quotes, antecedents to pronouns, and numerous other things: I not only left it heavily green-stained, but was surprised at how little the person before me had marked.

Most of the manuscripts weren't like that--in some I just marked the odd comma, or places where the underlining wandered into the space between words.

In between times, I let the cat out, explained to a four-year-old that no, we don't have to get the caterpillar down from the wall to prevent it from falling down, and chatted with my fellow unpaid editorial types, including Graham Sleight, who was in from Britain for a week and responded to my name with "As in 'Yet Another Web Log'?" Eventually, we had dinner--barbecued burgers, potatoes, and fruit salad--and Kevin got me back to the train, promising, or maybe threatening, to come by tomorrow evening with proofs for me to read.

We have fun.

NY Review of SF work weekend

Kevin picked me up, and we went up to Pleasantville and did NYRSF things. In my case, that meant I read manuscripts, marking everything from commas to unclear antecedents to dubious logic and awkward jumps.

There was one author--this is a manuscript not yet accepted or laid out--who used "Orient" explicitly to mean "the Middle East, China, and Japan" [but not, apparently, any of the area between]. Two sentences later, she had me muttering furiously and scribbling suggested rewrites in the margin, for where she'd described Asia as exotic and "outside of common human experience" (between a third and a half of us humans live in Asia); I suggested "American" instead of "human" there. And I remembered what it is about the word "Oriental" that bothers me, which I hadn't quite articulated in a recent rassef discussion: that weird exoticism, of a place that may be interesting or even important, but is seen as inherently distant. I haven't read the books being discussed, but the critic clearly considers both Jerusalem absolutely central and thoroughly exotic, and hasn't considered that there are many people to whom it is neither of those things, or one but not the other.

This author was also somewhat repetitive, and careless with quotes, antecedents to pronouns, and numerous other things: I not only left it heavily green-stained, but was surprised at how little the person before me had marked.

Most of the manuscripts weren't like that--in some I just marked the odd comma, or places where the underlining wandered into the space between words.

In between times, I let the cat out, explained to a four-year-old that no, we don't have to get the caterpillar down from the wall to prevent it from falling down, and chatted with my fellow unpaid editorial types, including Graham Sleight, who was in from Britain for a week and responded to my name with "As in 'Yet Another Web Log'?" Eventually, we had dinner--barbecued burgers, potatoes, and fruit salad--and Kevin got me back to the train, promising, or maybe threatening, to come by tomorrow evening with proofs for me to read.

We have fun.